GasLit Nation: End of the Line

July 12, 2022

GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR

We’re ba-a-a-ack! Like a poltergeist of civic conscience, Gaslit Nation has returned to tell you all the things you do not want to know but need to hear. We were off for three months while Andrea had a baby (welcome to the family Chloe!) and Sarah had her bodily autonomy signed away by the Attorney General of Missouri. An eventful spring for all!

GasLit Nation: Fight Back with “The States Project”

June 15, 2022

GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR

In a two-part discussion, this week we’re joined by two experts on the frontlines of fighting for our democracy on the all critical state level. If you want to fight for our democracy and prevent the slide into authoritarianism, clean up your local state government! How to proceed? Two experts from The States Project – Melissa Walker, a widely read author for teen novels turned democracy defender, and the Head of Giving Circles, and Aaron Kleinman, the Director of Research – are here to tell you. Walker and Kleinman address structural impediments to democracy – including gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the composition of the Senate – as well as challenges from dark money shadow networks and astroturf protests. They also give advice on navigating state politics and staying strong in the midst of this onslaught on our rights. We need all hands on deck for 2022, and an informed public is a powerful public!

GasLit Nation: Scholar Nancy MacLean on “the Trump Crime Cult’s Capitol attack,” and more

June 8, 2022

GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR

This is Part II of our interview. In this two-part interview, we take a deep dive into a right-wing hellhole with acclaimed scholar Nancy MacLean, the author of the bestseller Democracy in Chains, which discusses how anti-democratic networks run by powerful plutocrats came to hold the United States hostage. MacLean discusses the Koch dark money network and its shadowy political partners, the decades-long libertarian takeover of the Republican Party by far-right mercenaries, the infrastructure of this extremist network and how it has sustained itself for so long, the rise of the neo-confederacy, and the dystopian plans billionaires have for the American future. We also get MacLean’s opinions on recent crises like the pandemic, the Trump Crime Cult’s Capitol attack, and the assault on voting rights. And of course we ask her how we best battle these insidious adversaries, break America’s Koch addiction, and get our country back!

GasLit Nation: Help Ukraine by Cleaning Up Western Corruption. The Maksym Eristavi Interview

May 18, 2022

GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR

In this interview conducted a few weeks before Russia’s escalation of its invasion of Ukraine, Eastern European journalist and writer Maksym Eristavi explains the social and political crises that led the world to this point. Andrea and Maksym discuss corruption in Ukraine, how the Kremlin has weaponized that corruption, and how corruption in Ukraine is an enduring legacy of Russian genocidal colonialism, and how the West can help Ukraine by cleaning up its own corruption. They also discuss Ukraine’s efforts to build a free and just civil society despite corruption, in particular ongoing initiatives to preserve LGBTQ rights. This interview provides vital historical context on the ongoing regional conflict.

GasLit Nation: “Targeted by the Mafia State” – An Interview With Cheri Jacobus

April 20, 2022

GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR

Back in 2015 and 2016, as the GOP caved to the Trump crime cult and the mainstream media normalized their corrupt ambitions, a few voices from the right rose up in dissent. One of the leading lights in this regard was Cheri Jacobus, a political commentator and former Republican who was an early target of Trump’s vicious campaign and its propaganda machine. Currently a registered Independent, Cheri was the founder, President, and Executive Producer of “America Reads The Mueller Report” and the former host of the podcast “Politics with Cheri Jacobus”. She remains an outspoken critic of the Trump crime cult and its enablers..